#act 6-3

The Calliope/Caliborn shit is by far the most interesting stuff going on atm. So many implications that go so far back into the comic it's astounding. I'm genuinely so excited to see where the story with them and Lord English goes from here. See this post for my detailed opinions on that last big Caliborn flash because I had a lot to yap about

All of the meteor banter is absolutely peak. All the beta kids and trolls have been developed enough that just dropping them in a room and letting them bounce off of each other makes for outrageously fun scenes as well as genuinely fascinating character moments

Gamzee??? Huh??? Murderstuck doesn't seem like a fluke anymore. That feels like part of something bigger. I'm not sure what the fuck is going on with the Mekaras but he and Kurloz have some devious shit going on that I'm dying to know more about.

The John and Jade side of the beta kids is definitely a little less bombastically fun but no less interesting. John is going through some genuinely interesting devlopments as far as his changing mindsets and opinions and I'm very curious how this will continue to manifest especially once they're together with all the others again.

The Alpha kids are SHMOVIN now. Finally all together in the session, lfg!!! They've by far been the most far removed from the rest of the cast, so I'm so ready to see how they'll be integrated into all the other goings on. Obviously the beta/alpha counterpart meetups are the biggest thing to look forward to.

Also really fascinated with the Auto Responder and the way he's been set up to question the idea of mortality. Plus the references to HAL make me narrow my eyes suspiciously at the possibility that he goes rogue and turns all evil on the kids. OR already has and has been working with the Condesce or some shit.

Going off that, wondering if the Condesce will enter the story as an immediate threat. She's obviously been orchestrating everything in the background but I'm wondering if she'll show up as a miniboss on the way to Lord English. I assume so, and I wonder how Meenah will deal with that if it is the case.

And some unfortunate negatives:

Openbound fucking killed the pacing for me. I was enjoying A6A3 SO MUCH and then the intermission put the brakes on so god damn hard it almost made me forget how much I was enjoying the act beforehand

On that note, I have extremely mixed feelings on the alpha trolls rn. I sincerely hope they get more interesting and grow on me but the vast majority of them are leaving me without much impact. See my previous homestuck post for detailed opinions on all of them lol

There are just... so many characters... and so many storylines. I historically have enjoyed the complexity of Homestuck. I find all the time travel and time loops and converging storylines very satisfying. However. I feel we've reached a point where there is just so much going on at any given time that the story unfortunately starts feeling so much less focused because of it. In order to meaningfully explore one portion of the story/characters, so many others inevitably have to get benched intermittently.

As kind of a consequence for that last thing, LOTTA FUCKING PARAGRAPHS ABOUT SHIT. I kinda felt this act had a bit of an excess of exposition, with Aranea being the obvious worst case of this. The story wants to fill us in on so many little details that some of it ends up just reading like an article on a fan wiki. It's just not very engaging when this happens.

Jack is just barely even a thing anymore. I know it makes sense in the story; he's being held up by PM and the whole idea is that he won't catch up until the kids are in the new instance. But that doesn't make it feel less anticlimactic that he went from a hugely intimidating, front-and-center threat to essentially a background character for a few acts in a row. Bro has been demoted to a Jobber